It is hard to believe that Israelis are watching the scenes from Cairo with anything but dread. Yet, the Arab Awakening has presented Israelis with an opportunity to secure their place in the Middle East.
Read the rest and comment here.
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Waltz with Bashir
Tel Aviv – With the academy awards approaching, I’ve decided that the best film I saw this year was Waltz with Bashir, nominated for best foreign language film (Hebrew). An animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir presents the experience of war in a unique and powerful way.
While the impending doom of the Sabra and Shatila massacre pervades the movie and pulls the viewer towards the culminating final scene, Waltz with Bashir is about the experience of young men sent to war. The story is told through the lens of (writer, director, and producer) Ari Folman’s struggle to recollect his wartime experiences. When a friend tells Ari about his reoccurring nightmare in which a pack of Lebanese dogs races through Tel Aviv to find him, Ari is confronted by his own nightmare as well as an inability to remember his time in Lebanon 20 years earlier.
In Ari’s nightmare, he and two other young men float ashore to downtown Beirut, M-16s in hand. The city is dark, lit only by the light of flares, drifting like shining feathers to the street below. The three young men rise naked from the water and look like a cross between emaciated concentration camp survivors and gangly teenagers. Ari and his two comrades don army uniforms and glide through the streets of war-torn Beirut, presumably in the direction of Sabra and Shatila. This nightmare sets Ari in motion on a journey to remember what he did in Lebanon, in particular during the 1982 massacre of the Palestinian refugee camp.
If the film was comprised of actual video interviews and newsreel clips, it would be a collection of soul-searching testimonies and horror-filled depictions of war and death. It would appeal to a select audience and be difficult content for everyone else. For this reason, the film’s animated style is remarkable. The animation presents the brutality and trauma of war in a way that allows all viewers to absorb the full picture, beyond the gore. The curly locks of a child beneath the rubble and the flies swarming the glassy eye of a fallen horse remain disturbing, but the animated versions make the images bearable and allow the viewer to consider elements of war beyond the in-your-face destruction.
While the animated style dulls the carnage of war, it deepens the humanity of the film’s main characters. As the now bald, long-haired, or bearded men recall their days as young men in Lebanon with vivid flashbacks, the age is clear on their faces and the scars shine through in a brilliant and simple way. In particular, Ari’s eyes, as well as those of his friend Carmi, have a depth to them that would be hard to achieve with live footage. The animated “sets” are equally remarkable, capturing the drama of each moment in an impossible way. There are poignant shots of Ari standing outside his car in the rain at the Tel Aviv port, of a Palestinian man with a cross carved into his chest being driven away in the back of a truck, and of the Beirut coast lit up at night by those drifting flares.
Further, the documentary’s animated style masterfully reinforces the message of “boys sent to war.” The animation accentuates their youth and irresponsible behavior, as Israeli teenagers machine-gun their way across southern Lebanon, crush parked cars with their tanks, and drink themselves into the night on a boat off of the Lebanese coast. For some reason, the sometimes jerky and sometimes repeating movements of the characters make the involvement of teenagers in the details of war more heinous. Watching a young Ari and his comrades float naked towards Beirut’s darkness, I couldn’t help but think of child soldiers in Africa. They are more like lost boys than an invading army.
It would seem that several of the boys remain lost 20 years later – the characters ring true and offer insight into another part of war. Carmi, the exile, is a boy genius who made a fortune selling falafel in Holland. Ronny, the “anti-hero,” is the now bald boy whose tank was blown up, his comrades killed, and who escaped, alone, swimming south along the Mediterranean coast. And then there are the traumatized ones, too, like Boaz who is haunted by the ghosts of the Lebanese dogs he killed years before and Ari, who in his dreams emerges again and again from the Mediterranean under the lit-up Beirut night.
Military service is compulsory in Israel and there isn’t a generation here who hasn’t had combat experience in the state’s 60-year history. Of course, mandatory service (in this case in Lebanon) is not a pass for shrugging off individual responsibility for one's actions, an area that Folman does not explore in this film. However, beyond this point, Waltz with Bashir successfully offers a sliver of insight into the effects of war on citizen-soldiers. With today’s news cycle, there is no shortage of coverage of the terrible impact that war has on civilians, most recently in Gaza in this last round of fighting. While the psychological trauma of soldiers returned home does not compete with the massacre of civilians and the destruction of cities and homes, Waltz with Bashir is successful in making clear that young men sent to soldier for their country are victims, too.
While the impending doom of the Sabra and Shatila massacre pervades the movie and pulls the viewer towards the culminating final scene, Waltz with Bashir is about the experience of young men sent to war. The story is told through the lens of (writer, director, and producer) Ari Folman’s struggle to recollect his wartime experiences. When a friend tells Ari about his reoccurring nightmare in which a pack of Lebanese dogs races through Tel Aviv to find him, Ari is confronted by his own nightmare as well as an inability to remember his time in Lebanon 20 years earlier.
In Ari’s nightmare, he and two other young men float ashore to downtown Beirut, M-16s in hand. The city is dark, lit only by the light of flares, drifting like shining feathers to the street below. The three young men rise naked from the water and look like a cross between emaciated concentration camp survivors and gangly teenagers. Ari and his two comrades don army uniforms and glide through the streets of war-torn Beirut, presumably in the direction of Sabra and Shatila. This nightmare sets Ari in motion on a journey to remember what he did in Lebanon, in particular during the 1982 massacre of the Palestinian refugee camp. If the film was comprised of actual video interviews and newsreel clips, it would be a collection of soul-searching testimonies and horror-filled depictions of war and death. It would appeal to a select audience and be difficult content for everyone else. For this reason, the film’s animated style is remarkable. The animation presents the brutality and trauma of war in a way that allows all viewers to absorb the full picture, beyond the gore. The curly locks of a child beneath the rubble and the flies swarming the glassy eye of a fallen horse remain disturbing, but the animated versions make the images bearable and allow the viewer to consider elements of war beyond the in-your-face destruction.
While the animated style dulls the carnage of war, it deepens the humanity of the film’s main characters. As the now bald, long-haired, or bearded men recall their days as young men in Lebanon with vivid flashbacks, the age is clear on their faces and the scars shine through in a brilliant and simple way. In particular, Ari’s eyes, as well as those of his friend Carmi, have a depth to them that would be hard to achieve with live footage. The animated “sets” are equally remarkable, capturing the drama of each moment in an impossible way. There are poignant shots of Ari standing outside his car in the rain at the Tel Aviv port, of a Palestinian man with a cross carved into his chest being driven away in the back of a truck, and of the Beirut coast lit up at night by those drifting flares.
Further, the documentary’s animated style masterfully reinforces the message of “boys sent to war.” The animation accentuates their youth and irresponsible behavior, as Israeli teenagers machine-gun their way across southern Lebanon, crush parked cars with their tanks, and drink themselves into the night on a boat off of the Lebanese coast. For some reason, the sometimes jerky and sometimes repeating movements of the characters make the involvement of teenagers in the details of war more heinous. Watching a young Ari and his comrades float naked towards Beirut’s darkness, I couldn’t help but think of child soldiers in Africa. They are more like lost boys than an invading army. It would seem that several of the boys remain lost 20 years later – the characters ring true and offer insight into another part of war. Carmi, the exile, is a boy genius who made a fortune selling falafel in Holland. Ronny, the “anti-hero,” is the now bald boy whose tank was blown up, his comrades killed, and who escaped, alone, swimming south along the Mediterranean coast. And then there are the traumatized ones, too, like Boaz who is haunted by the ghosts of the Lebanese dogs he killed years before and Ari, who in his dreams emerges again and again from the Mediterranean under the lit-up Beirut night.
Military service is compulsory in Israel and there isn’t a generation here who hasn’t had combat experience in the state’s 60-year history. Of course, mandatory service (in this case in Lebanon) is not a pass for shrugging off individual responsibility for one's actions, an area that Folman does not explore in this film. However, beyond this point, Waltz with Bashir successfully offers a sliver of insight into the effects of war on citizen-soldiers. With today’s news cycle, there is no shortage of coverage of the terrible impact that war has on civilians, most recently in Gaza in this last round of fighting. While the psychological trauma of soldiers returned home does not compete with the massacre of civilians and the destruction of cities and homes, Waltz with Bashir is successful in making clear that young men sent to soldier for their country are victims, too.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Beatlemania in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv – A little more than a week later and the Beatle’s invasion can still be felt on Shankin Street, Ibn Gvirol, and along the Ayalon Freeway. From the windows of passing cars and descending from the second and third stories of downtown apartments come the sounds of All You Need is Love and Let it Be.
Last Thursday night, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 people converged on Park HaYarkon in the heart of Tel Aviv to hear Sir Paul McCartney in concert. In the days leading up to the concert, the local papers covered the legend’s comings and goings. He visited the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, his entourage spent about $110,000 on hotel rooms, and streets were closing to prepare for the thousands of pedestrians trying to make up for lost time.
In 1965, the Israeli government banned the Beatles from performing in Israel, fearing they would corrupt the morals of the country’s youth. Earlier this year, the “ban” was formally lifted and an apology was issued to McCartney, Ringo, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison. Forty-three years later, it was Islamic militants who tried to keep McCartney away. A radical preaching from Lebanon threatened McCartney’s life for performing in Israel. To the joy of Israelis, Sir Paul paid the threats no mind.
VIP seats in the open air HaYarkon Park went for about $1500 and the cheapest seats – on the lawn, where I swayed with thousands of others – were about $150 a pop. My wife bought the tickets and I only found out how much they cost the day of the concert. Had I known the bill, I probably would have missed something rare and beautiful. With the U.S. economy melting down and people losing their homes, it is hard to write these words, but Paul McCartney live was worth at least a few nights of pasta at home and the sandwiches I’ll be eating for lunch for a while.
At about half past 8 last Thursday night, he burst on to the stage and sang Hello, Goodbye. Under two towering video screens that projected his image into the night, with a slideshow backdrop of flashing oranges and yellows, he belted out the lyrics and the crowd loved him for it.
Maybe he starts every show that way – I don’t know – but I suddenly realized that I was at a Beatles concert. True, it was just a single Beatle with one of the greatest cover bands ever (honestly, I’m not even sure if they have a name), but it occurred to me that I was watching history. Those clips I’d seen over the years, of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, being chased around the world by hordes of screaming women, and performing against seemingly every possible backdrop, and here they were, right in front of me!
Okay, okay, it was just one Beatle, but I found it overwhelming to think about the people he’d met over the last forty some years, the places he’d been, and the things he saw. In 1965, when he and the others never made their trip here, Israel was a farm-in-the-desert country, its existence threatened by its neighbors. The civil rights movement was ascendant in the U.S. as we sunk into Vietnam. And Paul McCartney was a 23 year-old kid with the world in the palm of his hand.
So much is different, some is very much the same; unquestionably, Paul McCartney held the crowd in the palm of his hand. He started speaking in Hebrew, thanking us and wishing all a happy Jewish new year. Later in the show, in Hebrew, he dedicated songs to his late wife Linda, George Harrison, and John Lennon. As A Day in the Life, the tribute to John Lennon, wound down, McCartney broke into a chorus of All We are Saying is Give Peace a Chance. The crowd erupted, hands in the air, we chanted along not wanting the night or the moment to end.
He thrilled the crowd with “Ahlan, Jude.” Like a pinball bouncing around, McCartney switched instruments between guitars, the piano, and a little mandolin. When he played Live and Let Die the concert was transformed into a pyrotechnic bonanza with fireworks blasting into the sky. My favorite part of the two and a half hour show was when he sent the band offstage and crooned Blackbird. The crowd sang along softly, waiving their cellphones in the air. No longer a farm-in-the-desert country, Israel is a high tech capital and people are just as likely to have a blackberry as they are a lighter, at least with this cost of admission.
On a Thursday night in Tel Aviv, with boundless energy, eyebrows reaching upwards, and his face fixed in a smile, Paul McCartney took 40-some thousand Israelis and assorted expats to another place and another time. And at the end of the show, after a couple of encores, he wished us a Shana Tova and Ramadan Karim, and sent us off humming into the night, a part of history.
Last Thursday night, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 people converged on Park HaYarkon in the heart of Tel Aviv to hear Sir Paul McCartney in concert. In the days leading up to the concert, the local papers covered the legend’s comings and goings. He visited the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, his entourage spent about $110,000 on hotel rooms, and streets were closing to prepare for the thousands of pedestrians trying to make up for lost time.
In 1965, the Israeli government banned the Beatles from performing in Israel, fearing they would corrupt the morals of the country’s youth. Earlier this year, the “ban” was formally lifted and an apology was issued to McCartney, Ringo, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison. Forty-three years later, it was Islamic militants who tried to keep McCartney away. A radical preaching from Lebanon threatened McCartney’s life for performing in Israel. To the joy of Israelis, Sir Paul paid the threats no mind.
VIP seats in the open air HaYarkon Park went for about $1500 and the cheapest seats – on the lawn, where I swayed with thousands of others – were about $150 a pop. My wife bought the tickets and I only found out how much they cost the day of the concert. Had I known the bill, I probably would have missed something rare and beautiful. With the U.S. economy melting down and people losing their homes, it is hard to write these words, but Paul McCartney live was worth at least a few nights of pasta at home and the sandwiches I’ll be eating for lunch for a while.
At about half past 8 last Thursday night, he burst on to the stage and sang Hello, Goodbye. Under two towering video screens that projected his image into the night, with a slideshow backdrop of flashing oranges and yellows, he belted out the lyrics and the crowd loved him for it.
Maybe he starts every show that way – I don’t know – but I suddenly realized that I was at a Beatles concert. True, it was just a single Beatle with one of the greatest cover bands ever (honestly, I’m not even sure if they have a name), but it occurred to me that I was watching history. Those clips I’d seen over the years, of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, being chased around the world by hordes of screaming women, and performing against seemingly every possible backdrop, and here they were, right in front of me!
Okay, okay, it was just one Beatle, but I found it overwhelming to think about the people he’d met over the last forty some years, the places he’d been, and the things he saw. In 1965, when he and the others never made their trip here, Israel was a farm-in-the-desert country, its existence threatened by its neighbors. The civil rights movement was ascendant in the U.S. as we sunk into Vietnam. And Paul McCartney was a 23 year-old kid with the world in the palm of his hand.
So much is different, some is very much the same; unquestionably, Paul McCartney held the crowd in the palm of his hand. He started speaking in Hebrew, thanking us and wishing all a happy Jewish new year. Later in the show, in Hebrew, he dedicated songs to his late wife Linda, George Harrison, and John Lennon. As A Day in the Life, the tribute to John Lennon, wound down, McCartney broke into a chorus of All We are Saying is Give Peace a Chance. The crowd erupted, hands in the air, we chanted along not wanting the night or the moment to end.
He thrilled the crowd with “Ahlan, Jude.” Like a pinball bouncing around, McCartney switched instruments between guitars, the piano, and a little mandolin. When he played Live and Let Die the concert was transformed into a pyrotechnic bonanza with fireworks blasting into the sky. My favorite part of the two and a half hour show was when he sent the band offstage and crooned Blackbird. The crowd sang along softly, waiving their cellphones in the air. No longer a farm-in-the-desert country, Israel is a high tech capital and people are just as likely to have a blackberry as they are a lighter, at least with this cost of admission.
On a Thursday night in Tel Aviv, with boundless energy, eyebrows reaching upwards, and his face fixed in a smile, Paul McCartney took 40-some thousand Israelis and assorted expats to another place and another time. And at the end of the show, after a couple of encores, he wished us a Shana Tova and Ramadan Karim, and sent us off humming into the night, a part of history.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Jerusalem Stories
Jaffa – On Thursday night in the Old City of Jaffa, I went to a place called the Arab-Hebrew Theater to see a performance of Jerusalem Stories, first in Arabic and then in Hebrew. Jerusalem Stories is an innovative idea in conflict resolution. It is a collection of Jerusalemites’ narratives, told in theatric monologue form, about their personal struggles, feelings, and losses inside the holy city.
Over three hours, six stories were recounted with much passion. Among them, there was an elderly muhajiba woman who traverses checkpoints daily to sell olives and dried fruits at Damascus Gate, a Kipah-wearing bus driver whose bus was bombed by a young suicide bomber, an aggrieved Palestinian man whose nephew was killed by the Israeli army on the day that Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, and a distraught Israeli mother who lost her young son to Palestinian suicide bombers in downtown Jerusalem.
What’s unique about these Jerusalem Stories of sadness and suffering are how they are told. There were actually two performances. First, the talented Mazin Safadi and Hiba Muffatesh delivered all six of the monologues (three Israeli and three Palestinian) in Arabic. Then, after a thirty-minute break, and to a different audience (with some exceptions), the equally strong Royi Nave and Hava Ortman performed the exact same six stories in powerful fashion, in Hebrew.
Since I stayed for both performances, I had the chance to hear, in Hebrew, about the muhajiba woman’s struggle at checkpoints and with Israeli soldiers. Similarly, in Arabic, I listened to the story of an Orthodox Israeli woman recite her favorite of the tehillim or psalms, which she reads for the victims of terror. At moments like these, the presentation was paradoxical, in a smile-inducing way, which was not altogether natural.
That wasn’t the case though for the stories of the deaths of Magdy or Assaf, young Jerusalemite boys, a Palestinian and an Israeli, struck down during the al-Aqsa intifada. As the actors playing Magdy’s uncle, first in Arabic and then about an hour and a half later in Hebrew, expressed the anger and grief of the loss of a loved one outside of the expected sequence of life, the language melted away. The story stopped being Arabic or Hebrew and it was just about the tragedy of the death of a boy. It was the same for the death of Assaf. The grief on the Arabic-speaking actress’ face and the distress in her voice as she described the absence of her son and the void in her life was moving. It wasn’t Israeli or Palestinian -- it was purely human and very sad.
And I guess that is where the conflict resolution comes to force. People identify, rather easily, with the suffering of their own kind. Carol Grosman, the project director and chief storyteller, and Mohammed Thaher, the project’s Palestinian director, have taken an innovative route. In addition to the stories there are post-performance facilitated discussions, other educational workshops, and a photograph exhibit. The stories, though, are the centerpiece, and they bring each community, in their own language, face-to-face with the horrors they know and carry around, but also with the tragedies and difficulties of the other community, which they may not have previously seen or recognized. To watch these stories recounted, in such a meaningful way, one can’t but walk away with an idea of the other’s loss and suffering as well as a sense for each people’s attachment and affection for Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Stories convey a powerful message, but I was just a few steps outside the theater when I was reminded that there is so much more than conflict, pain, and suffering here. Walking through Jaffa’s Old City, I passed sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea and downtown Tel Aviv. The Old City’s cobbled streets were quiet and the Mediterranean breeze made me feel like I was in Southern Europe. On my way to my car, I passed Abu Lafya, an Israeli legend of a bakery in Jaffa.
During the day, Abu Lafya is bustling. Arabic and Hebrew speaking customers swarm the counter and order fresh pastries that are baked in gigantic fired-ovens and filled with cheese, zatar, potatoes, eggs, and other favorites. Tonight, though, Abu Lafya was still. Abu Lafya family members sat in plastic chairs behind the counter drinking tea. I ordered a potato pastry in Arabic from a youngish guy with gelled black hair. A middle-aged guy with glasses came up beside me and ordered his pastries from the same young man, but in Hebrew. We each got the same thank you and good night, but in different languages.
The pain of the stories inside the theater, the tales of personal heartbreak, spiritual commitment, national love, and justice denied are all true, but there are so many other stories of co-existence and normal daily life, that are also true and less frequently told. There are lots of stories here, of all varieties.
My stories will be interrupted, though, for a little while. I’ve got to take a break from the "Live from ..." blog to work on larger projects. Full-time work is more than full-time, and I have to ration and channel my words, at least for now.
Until my next "Live from ..." column, all the best-
Over three hours, six stories were recounted with much passion. Among them, there was an elderly muhajiba woman who traverses checkpoints daily to sell olives and dried fruits at Damascus Gate, a Kipah-wearing bus driver whose bus was bombed by a young suicide bomber, an aggrieved Palestinian man whose nephew was killed by the Israeli army on the day that Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, and a distraught Israeli mother who lost her young son to Palestinian suicide bombers in downtown Jerusalem.
What’s unique about these Jerusalem Stories of sadness and suffering are how they are told. There were actually two performances. First, the talented Mazin Safadi and Hiba Muffatesh delivered all six of the monologues (three Israeli and three Palestinian) in Arabic. Then, after a thirty-minute break, and to a different audience (with some exceptions), the equally strong Royi Nave and Hava Ortman performed the exact same six stories in powerful fashion, in Hebrew.
Since I stayed for both performances, I had the chance to hear, in Hebrew, about the muhajiba woman’s struggle at checkpoints and with Israeli soldiers. Similarly, in Arabic, I listened to the story of an Orthodox Israeli woman recite her favorite of the tehillim or psalms, which she reads for the victims of terror. At moments like these, the presentation was paradoxical, in a smile-inducing way, which was not altogether natural.
That wasn’t the case though for the stories of the deaths of Magdy or Assaf, young Jerusalemite boys, a Palestinian and an Israeli, struck down during the al-Aqsa intifada. As the actors playing Magdy’s uncle, first in Arabic and then about an hour and a half later in Hebrew, expressed the anger and grief of the loss of a loved one outside of the expected sequence of life, the language melted away. The story stopped being Arabic or Hebrew and it was just about the tragedy of the death of a boy. It was the same for the death of Assaf. The grief on the Arabic-speaking actress’ face and the distress in her voice as she described the absence of her son and the void in her life was moving. It wasn’t Israeli or Palestinian -- it was purely human and very sad.
And I guess that is where the conflict resolution comes to force. People identify, rather easily, with the suffering of their own kind. Carol Grosman, the project director and chief storyteller, and Mohammed Thaher, the project’s Palestinian director, have taken an innovative route. In addition to the stories there are post-performance facilitated discussions, other educational workshops, and a photograph exhibit. The stories, though, are the centerpiece, and they bring each community, in their own language, face-to-face with the horrors they know and carry around, but also with the tragedies and difficulties of the other community, which they may not have previously seen or recognized. To watch these stories recounted, in such a meaningful way, one can’t but walk away with an idea of the other’s loss and suffering as well as a sense for each people’s attachment and affection for Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Stories convey a powerful message, but I was just a few steps outside the theater when I was reminded that there is so much more than conflict, pain, and suffering here. Walking through Jaffa’s Old City, I passed sweeping views of the Mediterranean Sea and downtown Tel Aviv. The Old City’s cobbled streets were quiet and the Mediterranean breeze made me feel like I was in Southern Europe. On my way to my car, I passed Abu Lafya, an Israeli legend of a bakery in Jaffa.
During the day, Abu Lafya is bustling. Arabic and Hebrew speaking customers swarm the counter and order fresh pastries that are baked in gigantic fired-ovens and filled with cheese, zatar, potatoes, eggs, and other favorites. Tonight, though, Abu Lafya was still. Abu Lafya family members sat in plastic chairs behind the counter drinking tea. I ordered a potato pastry in Arabic from a youngish guy with gelled black hair. A middle-aged guy with glasses came up beside me and ordered his pastries from the same young man, but in Hebrew. We each got the same thank you and good night, but in different languages.
The pain of the stories inside the theater, the tales of personal heartbreak, spiritual commitment, national love, and justice denied are all true, but there are so many other stories of co-existence and normal daily life, that are also true and less frequently told. There are lots of stories here, of all varieties.
My stories will be interrupted, though, for a little while. I’ve got to take a break from the "Live from ..." blog to work on larger projects. Full-time work is more than full-time, and I have to ration and channel my words, at least for now.
Until my next "Live from ..." column, all the best-
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Friar on the Road: A December Rant
Jerusalem – Last night, on my way home from a Bat Mitzvah in Haifa, I was almost run off the road, three times. That isn’t bad. It is a two-hour trip each way and one potential incident every hour and twenty minutes is much better than what I face every morning on my 2.5 mile, 20 - 30 minute commute to work.
The driving here is awful.
According to Israel’s National Road Safety Authority, there were 428 fatal crashes leading to 480 deaths inside the Green Line in 2004 (most recent stats). There were also 3,091 drivers involved in “serious crashes.” That might not seem like a lot by American standards, but by Israeli standards, that is a ton. By comparison, 471 Israeli civilians, inside the Green Line, were killed by Palestinians between the start of the second Intifada (9/29/2000) and the end of last week.
I only realized the extent of my developing road rage a few weeks ago when I took a cab home from the Pittsburgh airport. The experience was nothing short of lovely. The driver and I talked about the Steelers for a solid half hour – the success of Mike Tomlin, Ben Rothlisberger’s comeback, and our distaste for the newly created mascot, Steely McBeam. As we spoke about the prospects for the Steelers’ post-season and cruised past yellow and red leaves on a wide-open three-lane road at a steady 55 mph, I realized that I was relaxed in a car for the first time in months.
Traffic was moving, there was no one bearing down on us from the right or left lane, and the traffic that did pass us (on the left no less!) used turn signals when changing lanes. When the road was empty, my fellow Steeler fan didn’t gun the engine and go 85 mph. We had a connection not just to our destination but also to other cars on the road.
What do I mean by that?
In Israel, the only thing that matters is your destination. There are speed limits and other cars, but for too many Israeli drivers, everything is about getting there (wherever it may be), as fast as you can. There is no driving etiquette – zero, zilch, bagel. Honk, cut off, honk, swerve, honk, make a u-turn, and honk some more. Just do whatever it takes to get to your destination three minutes earlier.
The worst thing that you can be in Israel is a “friar,” Hebrew for sucker. Little guardian angels fly around here, sit on people’s shoulder and scream, “al taytseh friar!” or don’t be a sucker! I’m convinced that the “al taytseh friar” factor affects how people drive.
If you let someone in ahead of you, you’re a friar.
If you wait in the turn lane to make the turn, you’re a friar.
If you don’t block the intersection at rush hour, you’re a friar.
Every morning on my way to work, I wait in a designated left hand turn lane to cross a major street. The lane usually has 10 to 15 cars in it and it takes two to three light changes to make the turn. Without fail each morning, per every light-change, at least one car drives all the way to the front of the line and shoots into the intersection before the first car and cuts it off. Actually, usually two cars do this per light, with the first one going fully perpendicular to the line of waiting cars. What are you going to do, T-Bone him? A couple of weeks ago, a van carrying kids pulled this move right in front of me. That’s great. They must have been late to homeroom.
The swerving and passing is just as bad. It is all a game of chicken with drivers thrusting between lanes and lurching into intersections. They put the onus on you to slam on the brakes or your car will be in an accident. Mopeds are the worst. They fly in and out of traffic, brushing between side mirrors and weaving back and forth between lanes.
I have a good friend in Pittsburgh who used to own a VW Jetta with a broken driver side window. Anytime he’d want to roll down his window and yell at a driver who’d irked him, he’d have to fumble around in the ashtray, grab the handle, attach it, and then roll down the window. Frequently, the driver would get away before the window had made it down and my friend would be left shaking his Jetta window handle at the windshield.
I wish I had a window handle to shake.
Instead, I pound the horn; long honks, double honks, and the rapid-fire repeater with a long blast of “I hate you” at the end. I swear, I point my finger, and then I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. I yell at the radio and the fingernail-on-the-chalkboard morning show DJs from RAM-FM (the only English language music station and the subject of a different diatribe).
And then, when I’m done, after a 30-minute, 2.5-mile drive full of fluster, I arrive at work to start my day.
The driving here is awful.
According to Israel’s National Road Safety Authority, there were 428 fatal crashes leading to 480 deaths inside the Green Line in 2004 (most recent stats). There were also 3,091 drivers involved in “serious crashes.” That might not seem like a lot by American standards, but by Israeli standards, that is a ton. By comparison, 471 Israeli civilians, inside the Green Line, were killed by Palestinians between the start of the second Intifada (9/29/2000) and the end of last week.
I only realized the extent of my developing road rage a few weeks ago when I took a cab home from the Pittsburgh airport. The experience was nothing short of lovely. The driver and I talked about the Steelers for a solid half hour – the success of Mike Tomlin, Ben Rothlisberger’s comeback, and our distaste for the newly created mascot, Steely McBeam. As we spoke about the prospects for the Steelers’ post-season and cruised past yellow and red leaves on a wide-open three-lane road at a steady 55 mph, I realized that I was relaxed in a car for the first time in months.
Traffic was moving, there was no one bearing down on us from the right or left lane, and the traffic that did pass us (on the left no less!) used turn signals when changing lanes. When the road was empty, my fellow Steeler fan didn’t gun the engine and go 85 mph. We had a connection not just to our destination but also to other cars on the road.
What do I mean by that?
In Israel, the only thing that matters is your destination. There are speed limits and other cars, but for too many Israeli drivers, everything is about getting there (wherever it may be), as fast as you can. There is no driving etiquette – zero, zilch, bagel. Honk, cut off, honk, swerve, honk, make a u-turn, and honk some more. Just do whatever it takes to get to your destination three minutes earlier.
The worst thing that you can be in Israel is a “friar,” Hebrew for sucker. Little guardian angels fly around here, sit on people’s shoulder and scream, “al taytseh friar!” or don’t be a sucker! I’m convinced that the “al taytseh friar” factor affects how people drive.
If you let someone in ahead of you, you’re a friar.
If you wait in the turn lane to make the turn, you’re a friar.
If you don’t block the intersection at rush hour, you’re a friar.
Every morning on my way to work, I wait in a designated left hand turn lane to cross a major street. The lane usually has 10 to 15 cars in it and it takes two to three light changes to make the turn. Without fail each morning, per every light-change, at least one car drives all the way to the front of the line and shoots into the intersection before the first car and cuts it off. Actually, usually two cars do this per light, with the first one going fully perpendicular to the line of waiting cars. What are you going to do, T-Bone him? A couple of weeks ago, a van carrying kids pulled this move right in front of me. That’s great. They must have been late to homeroom.
The swerving and passing is just as bad. It is all a game of chicken with drivers thrusting between lanes and lurching into intersections. They put the onus on you to slam on the brakes or your car will be in an accident. Mopeds are the worst. They fly in and out of traffic, brushing between side mirrors and weaving back and forth between lanes.
I have a good friend in Pittsburgh who used to own a VW Jetta with a broken driver side window. Anytime he’d want to roll down his window and yell at a driver who’d irked him, he’d have to fumble around in the ashtray, grab the handle, attach it, and then roll down the window. Frequently, the driver would get away before the window had made it down and my friend would be left shaking his Jetta window handle at the windshield.
I wish I had a window handle to shake.
Instead, I pound the horn; long honks, double honks, and the rapid-fire repeater with a long blast of “I hate you” at the end. I swear, I point my finger, and then I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. I yell at the radio and the fingernail-on-the-chalkboard morning show DJs from RAM-FM (the only English language music station and the subject of a different diatribe).
And then, when I’m done, after a 30-minute, 2.5-mile drive full of fluster, I arrive at work to start my day.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Friday Paper
French Hill, Jerusalem – One of the nice things about Israel is that the Sunday paper comes on Friday.
Lionel Richie's “Easy like Sunday morning,” doesn’t apply here. The Israeli workweek is Sunday through Friday afternoon. For Israelis, Sunday is Monday, Monday is Tuesday, and Tuesday is rough. A six-day workweek, even with a half-day included, is brutal.
If you were wondering, the Palestinian workweek in the West Bank is Sunday through Thursday. Since the Gaza coup, Hamas has changed the workweek in Gaza to Saturday through Wednesday. So, if you are a civil servant in Gaza, you have to decide whether you are going to go to work on Saturday. If you work Saturday, the government in Ramallah won’t pay you your salary. If you don’t work, then the Hamas government fires you.
Since Sunday is Monday in Israel, there is no point in a juicy, thick Sunday paper. By the time Sunday rolls around, the weekend is over. Instead, the Sunday paper, replete with entertainment and opinions, is the Friday paper in Israel.
For someone like me who works an American workweek, this means that even if I skip the news on Friday morning, I still have two full days to spend with the newspaper. This past weekend, I devoted myself to the Friday paper, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. All were satisfying.
Digression: I drove about 50 miles (roundtrip) on Saturday afternoon to see The Bourne Ultimatum because the Jerusalem theater that was showing it doesn’t screen films on Shabbat. The film was edge of your seat good and blended perfectly with the others. Middlesex was good too. I fear that this is a famously well-regarded book (it is on Oprah’s list) that I’ve only just discovered, so let me just say how much I enjoyed the way that the narrator’s tone shifted gender back and forth throughout the story. End Digression.
Haaretz, my English language newspaper of choice, is full of articles and opinions on headlining issues – the peace process, negotiations, political violence, etc. – as well as feature stories on the human aspects of the absence of peace. This past Friday, there were stories of interest from Sederot and Gaza. In Sederot, they are trying to figure out how to start the new school year amid mortar attacks from Gaza. In Gaza, the clothes manufacturing industry is collapsing, strangled by the full closure.
These stories involve human suffering that the public should be aware of, but they are “conflict” stories. You could substitute different proper names for the people or cities, and it could be another part of the world. What I find fascinating are the stories that couldn’t happen anywhere, like the Palestinian workweek conundrum and these gems:
“Pardes Hanna Mayor angered by Indian Jews’ Conversion Course in Town” According to the article, the Bnei Menashe who were lost 2700 years ago and who have returned to Israel from northeast India (where they maintained 40 synagogues) angered the mayor of this smaller town because they arrived in the town “secretly,” and did not coordinate with his office!
“Shas (a religious political party) Seeks To Punish Cremation with Jail Time” This one isn’t about prison terms for the ashes of cremated individuals. Rather, the Minister of Religious Affairs wants a bill that will punish anyone who cremates a body with a year in prison and a fine of $7500. The minister accused those who cremate of “suckl[ing] their heritage from the annihilators of the Jewish people . . . [and] implement[ing] a renewed final solution here.” Outrageous comparisons to the Holocaust combined with grandstanding legislative power, what a combination!
One of my favorite sections of the Friday paper is the “Anglo File.” This week there was an article about the Israel Land Development Corporation, an American company selling pieces of the Holy Land at $118 a square foot. Last’s week’s section contained profiles and pictures of new immigrants from America. I was touched and amused by the smiling picture of seven-year-old Elisha Z. He is looking forward to not having to go to school during Hanukkah, but is also going to miss the treehouse he left behind in New York.
A story that I’ve been following, but that didn’t appear this Friday, is about the African refugees (some from Darfur) trickling into Israel through the Sinai. These refugees walk here, and Israel doesn’t know what to do with them from either a practical or policy perspective. There are almost daily reports and stories ranging from Africans wandering in the Negev desert looking for help, to Israeli students demonstrating for asylum for Darfur refugees. The issue is intriguing given the importance the Holocaust played in the creation of the state and the moral obligation that many here feel to offer shelter to victims of genocide. At the same time, there is the competing pressure of maintaining Israel’s character as a Jewish state.
This could be a good point of discussion – I’d welcome your thoughts.
------------------------
I’ve gotten a few emails asking about it, but so far no response from the Ballfinder Scout people.
Lionel Richie's “Easy like Sunday morning,” doesn’t apply here. The Israeli workweek is Sunday through Friday afternoon. For Israelis, Sunday is Monday, Monday is Tuesday, and Tuesday is rough. A six-day workweek, even with a half-day included, is brutal.
If you were wondering, the Palestinian workweek in the West Bank is Sunday through Thursday. Since the Gaza coup, Hamas has changed the workweek in Gaza to Saturday through Wednesday. So, if you are a civil servant in Gaza, you have to decide whether you are going to go to work on Saturday. If you work Saturday, the government in Ramallah won’t pay you your salary. If you don’t work, then the Hamas government fires you.
Since Sunday is Monday in Israel, there is no point in a juicy, thick Sunday paper. By the time Sunday rolls around, the weekend is over. Instead, the Sunday paper, replete with entertainment and opinions, is the Friday paper in Israel.
For someone like me who works an American workweek, this means that even if I skip the news on Friday morning, I still have two full days to spend with the newspaper. This past weekend, I devoted myself to the Friday paper, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. All were satisfying.
Digression: I drove about 50 miles (roundtrip) on Saturday afternoon to see The Bourne Ultimatum because the Jerusalem theater that was showing it doesn’t screen films on Shabbat. The film was edge of your seat good and blended perfectly with the others. Middlesex was good too. I fear that this is a famously well-regarded book (it is on Oprah’s list) that I’ve only just discovered, so let me just say how much I enjoyed the way that the narrator’s tone shifted gender back and forth throughout the story. End Digression.
Haaretz, my English language newspaper of choice, is full of articles and opinions on headlining issues – the peace process, negotiations, political violence, etc. – as well as feature stories on the human aspects of the absence of peace. This past Friday, there were stories of interest from Sederot and Gaza. In Sederot, they are trying to figure out how to start the new school year amid mortar attacks from Gaza. In Gaza, the clothes manufacturing industry is collapsing, strangled by the full closure.
These stories involve human suffering that the public should be aware of, but they are “conflict” stories. You could substitute different proper names for the people or cities, and it could be another part of the world. What I find fascinating are the stories that couldn’t happen anywhere, like the Palestinian workweek conundrum and these gems:
“Pardes Hanna Mayor angered by Indian Jews’ Conversion Course in Town” According to the article, the Bnei Menashe who were lost 2700 years ago and who have returned to Israel from northeast India (where they maintained 40 synagogues) angered the mayor of this smaller town because they arrived in the town “secretly,” and did not coordinate with his office!
“Shas (a religious political party) Seeks To Punish Cremation with Jail Time” This one isn’t about prison terms for the ashes of cremated individuals. Rather, the Minister of Religious Affairs wants a bill that will punish anyone who cremates a body with a year in prison and a fine of $7500. The minister accused those who cremate of “suckl[ing] their heritage from the annihilators of the Jewish people . . . [and] implement[ing] a renewed final solution here.” Outrageous comparisons to the Holocaust combined with grandstanding legislative power, what a combination!
One of my favorite sections of the Friday paper is the “Anglo File.” This week there was an article about the Israel Land Development Corporation, an American company selling pieces of the Holy Land at $118 a square foot. Last’s week’s section contained profiles and pictures of new immigrants from America. I was touched and amused by the smiling picture of seven-year-old Elisha Z. He is looking forward to not having to go to school during Hanukkah, but is also going to miss the treehouse he left behind in New York.
A story that I’ve been following, but that didn’t appear this Friday, is about the African refugees (some from Darfur) trickling into Israel through the Sinai. These refugees walk here, and Israel doesn’t know what to do with them from either a practical or policy perspective. There are almost daily reports and stories ranging from Africans wandering in the Negev desert looking for help, to Israeli students demonstrating for asylum for Darfur refugees. The issue is intriguing given the importance the Holocaust played in the creation of the state and the moral obligation that many here feel to offer shelter to victims of genocide. At the same time, there is the competing pressure of maintaining Israel’s character as a Jewish state.
This could be a good point of discussion – I’d welcome your thoughts.
------------------------
I’ve gotten a few emails asking about it, but so far no response from the Ballfinder Scout people.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
The Lowest Point on Earth
Biankini Beach, the Dead Sea –
Salty, burning, knotted, mineral mud-laden big hair.
That is what I had after two days, three mud sessions, five floats in the Dead Sea, and no shampoo. This week’s post was going to be “Barbers without English.” Instead of confronting my barbershop fears, though, I took my mop-head to the Dead Sea for the weekend and offer observations from the lowest point on earth.
The Dead Sea is like no place on earth, and not just because it is lower than everywhere else. Lonely Planet says that the Dead Sea contains 20 percent more bromine (that’s the stuff of pickle jars, I think), 15 percent more magnesium, and 10 percent more iodine than your typical seawater.
Practically, this adds up to three things. First, all of these chemicals are supposed to soothe you. Second, the Dead Sea is in effect 33 percent solid substance, so it is almost impossible not to bob or float on top of the silty salty water. Third, Dead Sea water burns something awful if it gets into your eyes. Think about iodine in an open wound and multiply by 24. There is no better feeling in the world than the warm splash of the beach side shower’s fresh water flowing into your stinging eyes and washing out the Dead Sea after you’ve lurched from the water like a blinded sea creature, clenching your eyelids in pain. The purpose of the eye-washing station in Mr. Blough’s chemistry lab makes perfect sense to me now. We used to use it as a drinking fountain in 10th grade.
Besides people covering themselves in green mud and doing their best to look like the Hulk or Kermit depending upon their body type, the thing that makes the Dead Sea special is the collection of people that it attracts. On Friday evening, I sat on the dock and watched dusk settle with a group of older Sephardic, Hebrew-speaking women; an Arab family that included a muhajiba wife; several Nordic tourists; a Black Palestinian life guard; and several Russian speaking Israeli families – one with a very whiny adolescent named Alex who wouldn’t get out of the water and was determined to take Dead Sea mud home with him in the abused pockets of his red bathing suit. The next afternoon, the dock was crowded as well; mostly with Russian speaking Israelis but with other representatives of the Dead Sea mosaic too. Most of them were getting wasted in the sun. The number of empty Vodka, Bacardi, and Carlsberg bottles strewn about early Sunday morning rivaled the scene at a frat house. On Friday evening, though, I looked across the Dead Sea and saw the lights of Jordan’s resorts. When I lived in Jordan and visited the Dead Sea, I looked across the way and wondered what people were doing on the other side. There seemed to be so many lights compared to where I was standing. It was close geographically, but far away in almost every other way, at least for me, at that time. So it was strange to sit on the Israeli side and to feel the reverse, trying to picture what was going on in Jordan. To think of my Jordanian friends, but also to wonder whether anyone there could imagine the details of here. I was again struck by how close very different things are here, but how separate they remain at the same time.
Which brings me to the best part of the weekend, the four Palestinian-Israelis, all in their mid-20s, who I befriended. Palestinian-Israelis, also known in Arabic as Palestinians from 1948, are about a 20 percent minority in Israel. They are Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) who are Israeli citizens and whose families lived in parts of mandatory Palestine, like the Galilee or Haifa, that had Arab populations but that became parts of Israel in 1948.
Alaa, Jarious, Wisam, and Hadi grew up in neighboring villages in the Galilee and are friends from college. A pharmacist, two law students, and a medical student home from Italy for the summer, they came to the Dead Sea for the weekend. Their cabin was next door to mine and they insisted that I join them for food and drinks each night, as they grilled out on a little hibachi, drank beer and vodka, and sang classical Arab music. It turned out that Alaa studied at a university in Jordan at the same time as I was there. On Friday night, as we sat on their front porch and they sang Um Kalthoum songs, Shadi, a 22-year old from nearby Jericho who works at Biankini stopped by to drop off towels. The group urged him to sit, drink, and join the fun. They made introductions over the lamb and pork that they were grilling, and offered Shadi dinner, warning him off the pork that three of them were eating. Shadi asked them their religion and Jarious explained that three of them were Christian and one was Muslim. Shadi nodded, took a drag on his cigarette, and said, “Kol al nes, h’yar baraka,” or for all the people a good blessing.
Jericho sounds great in the bible, but it is a poor place. I was briefly there for the first time a few weeks ago and was struck by how much it felt like an Egyptian desert village. On the outskirts of town sits the towering Intercontinental Hotel, with its shiny wooden lobby fixtures, lingering staff, and its adjacent Oasis Casino. But Jericho itself seemed full of mostly dirt streets and squat buildings, few taller than three or four stories. The summer heat and dustiness recalled a pre-air conditioned time and the few people who I met mentioned a lack of opportunities beyond the dormant service industry.
Sitting there with Shadi from Jericho and the four upwardly mobile guys a couple of years older than him from the Galilee, I was again struck by closeness and farness of it all. All five are young Palestinian men living within a few hours of each other, but in such a different state and considered in such a different way. Jarious, Alaa, and the others sang the words of their favorite Um Kalthoum, Fairuz, and Abdel Halim songs – the icons of classical Arabic music – with such passion, joy, and ownership, but in Arab countries they would be considered sellouts by many on the basis of their Israeli citizenship. In Israel, on the other hand, the allegiances of Israeli-Palestinians are generally questioned, and some undetermined number of Israeli Jews regard them to be Palestinians, no different than Shadi.
Shadi, meanwhile, is considered a Palestinian by everyone. From the conversation both nights, though, it seemed as if his main concern was trying to figure out from Wisam (a future lawyer) how he could get an Israeli ID for his mother, who was married to a Palestinian with an Israeli ID. Wisam told him it would cost $4,000, an incredible sum for Shadi, but something that any of the other four sitting there would be able to afford with some saving.
There is a lot of stove piping here. Very different lives – whether it is Palestinians and Israeli Palestinians, the Russian Israelis and Sephardic Israelis at the beach, or Israelis and Jordanians even – occur in close proximity to each other, but do not necessarily intersect. In my case, this past weekend, there was a nice intersection. All five of these guys welcomed me for who I am, without bias against my religion and nationality. And there were more jokes about how good pork tastes (directed at me, Shadi, and Wisam) than I’ve heard in my life.
------
PS, I want to plug Biankini Beach, a nice, relaxing, and clean place with great breakfast and a nice staff. If you go, tell them I sent you.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Su BAr Ru
The outskirts of Beer Sheva – She was in her early 50s, with short big-hair and large rimmed plastic glasses. “What kind of car is it?” she asked skeptically, in Hebrew, from the other side of the counter.
“Subaru,” I answered. Two weeks of walking and taking cabs has been tiring and expensive. Whether to work, a nearby restaurant, or home from the Old City, every trip costs 25 shekels ($6). The distance just doesn’t seem to matter. It makes me nuts, and I’m wearing the soles of my shoes thin walking the hour home from work. The upside is that I like cutting through the Old City, buying some pistachios, and meandering through East Jerusalem. The downside is that it is almost all uphill (both ways) and trekking in a sports coat, in the summer, in the Middle East, isn’t pretty.
“What? We don’t have this,” she replied with a tone that implied that I was making up the names of cars.
“Subaru,” I repeated. “Forester.” I’ve been shopping for used cars. Well, not really shopping since I’ve only responded to one ad in the Embassy’s newsletter. The Sunday before, I’d driven to Gadera, south of Tel Aviv, in a rental car, on my way back from Haifa, to meet the owner, a tall guy from Michigan named Dave who works with the corps of engineers in Beer Sheva, and to test drive the car.
Driving here is like a race. You’re trying to escape the cars next to you as much as you are trying to actually reach your destination. Adding to the experience, Israeli roads have a special feature I call “the disappearing lane.” Two lanes merge to one with little notice. You have to anticipate the disappearing lane and speed ahead to beat the merge.
The Subaru performed fine in our test drive, but what do I know? I’m a city person – walking, riding buses and subways, and taking taxis when I need some social commentary.
So, I had to have the Subaru inspected before buying it. This meant renting a car and driving to Beer Sheva to take the Subaru to an “official garage” for a pre-sale inspection. When I called the garage for directions, I realized that no one there spoke English and that I was going to get lost. The place was on the outskirts of town in an area that didn’t have street names, several turns away from the junction that would take me to Dimona. The lack of street names wasn’t a big deal since I hadn’t been able to find a city map of Beer Sheva, Israeli’s fourth largest city. I found maps in atlases that showed the roads coming and going, but nothing for inside the city, perhaps a statement of some sort.
Getting lost isn’t so bad if you know in advance that it is going to happen and have a chance to caffeinate and snack. So, at a rest stop on a desert road outside of Beer Sheva, I stopped for a coffee and some grill flavored bisli, an Israeli chip that is a cross between dog food and Fritos. The ride, thus far, in my little white rental car with poor acceleration, had been nice. The rocky open valleys surrounding Jerusalem are gorgeous and I cruised down the hilly road in my soapbox racer listening to Galgalatz, a radio station that alternates between Israeli and English songs.
Before settling on Galgalatz, I skipped around between a range of Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian stations. Galgalatz’s variety was equally impressive – in a half hour they played Smokey Robinson, Stone Temple Pilots, and my new favorite hit, Ani Holech (I go/walk/leave). The only lyrics of Ani Holech that I understood were the chorus (Ani Holech), repeated again and again in grouchy vocals. I’m left assuming that the song is about an old man wearing a plaid hat and a white ‘members only’ jacket who is trying to return cold soup at a diner.
After racing through Jerusalem’s surrounding valleys, I passed some very green vineyards. I’d brought my camera and was going to take some pictures, but I knew that I didn’t have time to stop because I had to account for getting lost later. I figured I’d photograph the vineyards in the late afternoon light on the way home. I zipped past small packs of orthodox Jews in white shirts and black pants and young soldiers in olive colored uniforms looking to hitch a ride. The scenery changed again, tall fir trees became dusty rocky ridges. I slowed at a scene of a young boy herding a herd of goats around a water tanker with a Joshua tree placed teasingly in the background. On the way home, I told myself.
Percolating and full of bisli, it actually wasn’t that hard to find the garage. All of the signs were in Hebrew – usually signs are printed in Hebrew, English, and Arabic – but I stumbled upon the general area and only had to ask a couple of people for directions. It was more difficult directing Dave there, since he can’t read the signs and I could only use landmarks.
“What? Subru? This doesn’t exist,” the woman at the counter said, annoyed.
“Su-bar-ru, Su-bar-ru,” Dave said, losing patience with the communication problem.
“Su BAr Ru?? Ah, Su BAr Ru . . . why didn’t you say so?” she responded, shaking her head.
“Su BAr Ru, Su BAr Ru,” Dave and I said, nodding our heads and smiling.
Once we’d confirmed the existence of Su BAr Rus, the inspection was painless. We were sent to a group of cashiers, passed between them, and then on to a garage along the side of the complex where a man named Rafi inspected the car. No one spoke a word of English, and actually, until Rafi went through the inspection report relatively slowly, so that I could translate for Dave, no one made any special effort to be understood.
Jerusalem is swimming in English. At lunchtime, I walk through the Ben Yehdua pedestrian mall and I hear more English than Hebrew. At restaurants, stores, and even kiosks, in East or West Jerusalem, you can fall back on English, someone will understand. The garage outside Beer Sheva was the first Hebrew only environment that I’ve been in here, so far.
The car passed inspection and I made arrangements with Dave to make the exchange. Hungry, I drove down the thoroughfare looking for a place to eat. On my way to Gadera the Sunday before, I’d found a Burger Ranch – an Israeli fastfood joint – in a shopping center outside of Ramle. For 36 Shekels ($9) I got a spicy schnitzel sandwich (fried chicken in picante sauce that dripped on to my tray in a steady flow), fries, and a Sprite. Rip off! And it wasn’t just because I’m a foreigner – locals were eating there too! Some people think Jerusalem is nicknamed “Jerusalem of Gold” because of its beauty. I’m convinced the nickname comes from the cost of living. I’ll analyze my receipts for you in a different post, though. The important thing is that I was determined to do better than Burger Ranch.
Down the street from the garage, I found a warehouse-sized grocery store with a cafeteria. I got a freshly grilled, spiced ground meat kabob sandwich with all the fixings and a bottle of water for 18 Shekels ($4.5)! It is the best deal that I’ve gotten in Israel, and I happily scarfed it down in the meat section of the cafeteria. To my right, a row of potted plants separated me from a handful of guys eating dairy meals. Behind me, sat four industrial workers eating and chatting. Three of them sat at a table in the dairy section and the fourth next to them, but at a table on my side of the plants, eating a meat- stuffed pepper.
Since I had the rental car, I figured I’d do some shopping. As I fumbled my way through ordering sliced cheese in Hebrew, the woman at the deli counter asked me (in Hebrew) if I was from Russia. She assumed I was a new immigrant. I got similar questions at the checkout counter, as I struggled to fill out my “Super Card” form and then bag my own groceries as the cashier looked on. There was a Bedouin woman wearing a niqab (the Islamic face covering) in the aisle next to me. Hearing her buy groceries in Hebrew was alone worth the trip from Jerusalem.
Driving home, I pulled over to check out an ancient stone house in the middle of the desert, a few hundred feet from the road. I circled the roofless house, built of stacked flat stones, and went inside. In one of the back rooms, there was a cannon ball sized hole ripped into one of the external walls. It was a window into a desert whose brownness was only interrupted by a couple of dark green Joshua trees. With the afternoon light and the billowing desert dust, it was a trophy picture, justice for missing the watering goats earlier. I pulled my camera from its bag and turned the switch to no effect. The battery was dead.
So, no pictures from the road to Beer Sheva, sorry. I did buy the Su BAr Ru though. So maybe, I’ll go back. In the meantime, I need to name the car. Suggestions welcome.
“Subaru,” I answered. Two weeks of walking and taking cabs has been tiring and expensive. Whether to work, a nearby restaurant, or home from the Old City, every trip costs 25 shekels ($6). The distance just doesn’t seem to matter. It makes me nuts, and I’m wearing the soles of my shoes thin walking the hour home from work. The upside is that I like cutting through the Old City, buying some pistachios, and meandering through East Jerusalem. The downside is that it is almost all uphill (both ways) and trekking in a sports coat, in the summer, in the Middle East, isn’t pretty.
“What? We don’t have this,” she replied with a tone that implied that I was making up the names of cars.
“Subaru,” I repeated. “Forester.” I’ve been shopping for used cars. Well, not really shopping since I’ve only responded to one ad in the Embassy’s newsletter. The Sunday before, I’d driven to Gadera, south of Tel Aviv, in a rental car, on my way back from Haifa, to meet the owner, a tall guy from Michigan named Dave who works with the corps of engineers in Beer Sheva, and to test drive the car.
Driving here is like a race. You’re trying to escape the cars next to you as much as you are trying to actually reach your destination. Adding to the experience, Israeli roads have a special feature I call “the disappearing lane.” Two lanes merge to one with little notice. You have to anticipate the disappearing lane and speed ahead to beat the merge.
The Subaru performed fine in our test drive, but what do I know? I’m a city person – walking, riding buses and subways, and taking taxis when I need some social commentary.
So, I had to have the Subaru inspected before buying it. This meant renting a car and driving to Beer Sheva to take the Subaru to an “official garage” for a pre-sale inspection. When I called the garage for directions, I realized that no one there spoke English and that I was going to get lost. The place was on the outskirts of town in an area that didn’t have street names, several turns away from the junction that would take me to Dimona. The lack of street names wasn’t a big deal since I hadn’t been able to find a city map of Beer Sheva, Israeli’s fourth largest city. I found maps in atlases that showed the roads coming and going, but nothing for inside the city, perhaps a statement of some sort.
Getting lost isn’t so bad if you know in advance that it is going to happen and have a chance to caffeinate and snack. So, at a rest stop on a desert road outside of Beer Sheva, I stopped for a coffee and some grill flavored bisli, an Israeli chip that is a cross between dog food and Fritos. The ride, thus far, in my little white rental car with poor acceleration, had been nice. The rocky open valleys surrounding Jerusalem are gorgeous and I cruised down the hilly road in my soapbox racer listening to Galgalatz, a radio station that alternates between Israeli and English songs.
Before settling on Galgalatz, I skipped around between a range of Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian stations. Galgalatz’s variety was equally impressive – in a half hour they played Smokey Robinson, Stone Temple Pilots, and my new favorite hit, Ani Holech (I go/walk/leave). The only lyrics of Ani Holech that I understood were the chorus (Ani Holech), repeated again and again in grouchy vocals. I’m left assuming that the song is about an old man wearing a plaid hat and a white ‘members only’ jacket who is trying to return cold soup at a diner.
After racing through Jerusalem’s surrounding valleys, I passed some very green vineyards. I’d brought my camera and was going to take some pictures, but I knew that I didn’t have time to stop because I had to account for getting lost later. I figured I’d photograph the vineyards in the late afternoon light on the way home. I zipped past small packs of orthodox Jews in white shirts and black pants and young soldiers in olive colored uniforms looking to hitch a ride. The scenery changed again, tall fir trees became dusty rocky ridges. I slowed at a scene of a young boy herding a herd of goats around a water tanker with a Joshua tree placed teasingly in the background. On the way home, I told myself.
Percolating and full of bisli, it actually wasn’t that hard to find the garage. All of the signs were in Hebrew – usually signs are printed in Hebrew, English, and Arabic – but I stumbled upon the general area and only had to ask a couple of people for directions. It was more difficult directing Dave there, since he can’t read the signs and I could only use landmarks.
“What? Subru? This doesn’t exist,” the woman at the counter said, annoyed.
“Su-bar-ru, Su-bar-ru,” Dave said, losing patience with the communication problem.
“Su BAr Ru?? Ah, Su BAr Ru . . . why didn’t you say so?” she responded, shaking her head.
“Su BAr Ru, Su BAr Ru,” Dave and I said, nodding our heads and smiling.
Once we’d confirmed the existence of Su BAr Rus, the inspection was painless. We were sent to a group of cashiers, passed between them, and then on to a garage along the side of the complex where a man named Rafi inspected the car. No one spoke a word of English, and actually, until Rafi went through the inspection report relatively slowly, so that I could translate for Dave, no one made any special effort to be understood.
Jerusalem is swimming in English. At lunchtime, I walk through the Ben Yehdua pedestrian mall and I hear more English than Hebrew. At restaurants, stores, and even kiosks, in East or West Jerusalem, you can fall back on English, someone will understand. The garage outside Beer Sheva was the first Hebrew only environment that I’ve been in here, so far.
The car passed inspection and I made arrangements with Dave to make the exchange. Hungry, I drove down the thoroughfare looking for a place to eat. On my way to Gadera the Sunday before, I’d found a Burger Ranch – an Israeli fastfood joint – in a shopping center outside of Ramle. For 36 Shekels ($9) I got a spicy schnitzel sandwich (fried chicken in picante sauce that dripped on to my tray in a steady flow), fries, and a Sprite. Rip off! And it wasn’t just because I’m a foreigner – locals were eating there too! Some people think Jerusalem is nicknamed “Jerusalem of Gold” because of its beauty. I’m convinced the nickname comes from the cost of living. I’ll analyze my receipts for you in a different post, though. The important thing is that I was determined to do better than Burger Ranch.
Down the street from the garage, I found a warehouse-sized grocery store with a cafeteria. I got a freshly grilled, spiced ground meat kabob sandwich with all the fixings and a bottle of water for 18 Shekels ($4.5)! It is the best deal that I’ve gotten in Israel, and I happily scarfed it down in the meat section of the cafeteria. To my right, a row of potted plants separated me from a handful of guys eating dairy meals. Behind me, sat four industrial workers eating and chatting. Three of them sat at a table in the dairy section and the fourth next to them, but at a table on my side of the plants, eating a meat- stuffed pepper.
Since I had the rental car, I figured I’d do some shopping. As I fumbled my way through ordering sliced cheese in Hebrew, the woman at the deli counter asked me (in Hebrew) if I was from Russia. She assumed I was a new immigrant. I got similar questions at the checkout counter, as I struggled to fill out my “Super Card” form and then bag my own groceries as the cashier looked on. There was a Bedouin woman wearing a niqab (the Islamic face covering) in the aisle next to me. Hearing her buy groceries in Hebrew was alone worth the trip from Jerusalem.
Driving home, I pulled over to check out an ancient stone house in the middle of the desert, a few hundred feet from the road. I circled the roofless house, built of stacked flat stones, and went inside. In one of the back rooms, there was a cannon ball sized hole ripped into one of the external walls. It was a window into a desert whose brownness was only interrupted by a couple of dark green Joshua trees. With the afternoon light and the billowing desert dust, it was a trophy picture, justice for missing the watering goats earlier. I pulled my camera from its bag and turned the switch to no effect. The battery was dead.
So, no pictures from the road to Beer Sheva, sorry. I did buy the Su BAr Ru though. So maybe, I’ll go back. In the meantime, I need to name the car. Suggestions welcome.
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